1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal device and an electronic apparatus including the liquid crystal device.
2. Related Art
There is an IPS (In Plane Switching) type liquid crystal display device (hereinafter, referred to as an ‘IPS panel’) in which liquid crystal is interposed between two glass substrates, a predetermined voltage is applied between electrodes of a common electrode and a pixel electrode formed approximately in parallel for every pixel on one glass substrate surface to thereby generate an electric field in the in-plane direction of the glass substrate, and an image and the like are displayed by controlling the alignment direction of liquid crystal. In the case of the IPS panel, liquid crystal molecules rotate in a direction parallel to a substrate. Accordingly, when viewed from an inclined position, the liquid crystal molecules do not rotate in the polarization direction thereof. For this reason, the IPS panel is widely used as a liquid crystal display device in which a decrease in contrast is small and a viewing angle is large and which has satisfactory display quality.
Moreover, techniques for the improvement in the display quality of the IPS panel are disclosed in recent years. As one of the techniques, for example, JP-A-10-170924 discloses a technique of suppressing the sense of discomfort, which was felt in the related art, by making the viewing angle distribution of contrast symmetrical so that the image contrast of a liquid crystal panel reflected on left and right eyes is equal.
Thus, the IPS panel whose display quality is improved by various disclosed techniques is also used as a high-resolution panel corresponding to direct view type Hi-Vision and a light valve (light modulation device) of a projector, for example, by making pixels fine with an improvement in the display quality.
However, in the IPS panel, a voltage applied to one pixel electrode of adjacent pixels may generate an electric field for a common electrode of the other pixel theoretically. At this time, the generated electric field is small when there is a considerable distance between adjacent pixels. Accordingly, the electric field generated for the common electrode of the other pixel by the voltage applied to one pixel electrode may be interrupted by a signal line, which is used to supply a voltage applied to a pixel electrode, and a scanning line, which is used to supply a control signal that controls application of the supplied voltage to the pixel electrode. For this reason, there was no practical influence on the electric field generated between the pixel electrode of the other pixel and the common electrode.
However, when the pixel pitch is made small in order to meet a request for high-resolution image display in such an IPS panel, the distance between adjacent pixels is decreased. Accordingly, the physical distance between the pixel electrode of one pixel and the common electrode of the other pixel becomes short. Then, since the electric field generated for the common electrode of the other pixel by the voltage applied to one pixel electrode becomes large, the electric field generated between the pixel electrode of the other pixel and the common electrode is influenced. As a result, since the electric field to be originally applied in one pixel is disturbed, a problem that an image to be displayed is not correctly displayed and the display quality is degraded may occur.